Artist Sascha Pohflepp speaks about his research in synthetic biology as part of his ongoing collaboration with Sheref Mansy for Synthetic Aesthetics. Filmed at the Becoming Transnatural symposium and exhibition, (Amsterdam, March 2011), he argues that "Life-like machines have identity," as he opens up discussion about future machines subject to evolutionary pressures.

Sheref Mansy then skyped in from his lab in Trento:

Sissel Tolaas was a speaker at the World Science Festival in New York in June, discussing her Synthetic Aesthetics collaboration with Christina Agapakis. Sissel says, "Smell is one of those senses where context can play a huge role. A fine cheese and a dirty foot share the same molecular smells, yet one is a delicacy and other is repulsive."

For their BO_BAD_CHE project, Christina and Sissel collected bacteria from people and used it to make 'human' cheese. "We decided to focus on cheese as a metaphor for the human organism", explains Sissel. These personalised dairy products challenge the old adage of "we are what we eat", and the boundary between what we make and who we are. Their collaboration continues: most recently, at the SB5.0 conference at Stanford in June they ran a live cheese-making session, building a library of cheeses made from bacterial cultures swabbed from the global synthetic biology community. 

Video by Fernan Federici & David Benjamin, StudioX, New York (GSAPP, Columbia University) as part of their ongoing collaboration.

Read more about the ongoing work of Will Carey and Adam Reineck from IDEO and Reid Williams from the Lim Lab at UCSF in this FastCompany article here.

Read the article here.

Design Fellow Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg gave a talk on "The Changing Nature of Things" at the Poptech! conference in October 2011, calling for a new way to think about design in a biotechnology revolution. Video here.

Biologists and engineers should work together: synthetic biology reveals how organisms develop and function, argue Michael Elowitz and Wendell A. Lim in Nature 468, December 2010. 

"Although traditional disciplinary boundaries are dissolving, the cultural differences between scientists and engineers remain strong. For biologists, genetic modification is a tool to understand natural systems, not an end in itself. Thus, making biological systems 'engineerable' — a goal of engineers in the field of synthetic biology — can seem pointless. Many biologists wonder why engineers fail to appreciate the intricate, beautiful and sophisticated designs that occur naturally. Engineers are often equally perplexed by biologists. Why are they so obsessed about the details of one particular system? Why don't they appreciate the value of replacing a complex and idiosyncratic system with a simpler, more modular and more predictable alternative? These misunderstandings can make for fascinating conversations, but they can also prevent mutually beneficial synergies."

Synthetic Aesthetics' resident and Harvard synthetic biologist Christina Agapakis in conversation with Maggie Koerth-Baker, discussing synthetic biology, design, cheese and women in science and blogging. Watch the discussion here!

A new exhibition, ‘April is the Cruellest Month ...’ inspired by T.S. Eliot's poem The Wasteland, brings together artists and scientists at ArtCell Gallery, Cambridge, UK. Combining cutting edge scientific cellular imaging and artistic vision, this show is an exploration and celebration of ‘dull roots’ with new potential.

From the exhibition website:

Jim Haseloff and Fernan Federici's amazing prints of fluorescent protein labelled transgenic plants, stained whole-mounts and 3D reconstructions of plant cell anatomy, offer an other-worldly beauty to contemporary microscopic cellular plant examination. Various staining techniques are used to label DNA, proteins, carbohydrates etc., and the digital controls of a confocal microscope allow for the clean separation of different fluorescent emission signals and the balancing of signal levels in different channels, leading to the production of images with intense clarity and colour.

Based in the Department of Plant Sciences at Cambridge University, the Haseloff Laboratory is pioneering synthetic biology, and has constructed a series of tools for controlling gene misexpression, and marking specific cells in growing plants. The lab is building a new generation of genetic circuits that incorporate intercellular communication, and could be used to generate self-organised behaviour at the cellular scale. These kind of circuits and cell-cell interactions play a key role in plant development and morphogenesis, and synthetic circuits will allow bold new approaches to reprogramming plant systems.

Synthetic Biology is an emerging field that employs engineering principles for constructing genetic systems. The approach is based on the use of well-characterised and reusable components, and numerical models for the design of biological circuits.

 
Still from Urpflanze, Melanie Jackson
 

The Arts Catalyst, UCL and Synthetic Aesthetics in partnership with SymbioticA present a 6-day intensive exchange laboratory for artists, designers, synthetic biologists, engineers and others.  

IDEO brainstorm

Mariana and Chris exploring data systems in synthetic biology at CCRMA, Stanford.

Listening to the sonification of brain data from a patient with epilepsy.
CCRMA Listening Room at Stanford University.

Hi-throughput at the Anderson Lab

A hands-on synbio workshop in 2011

Synthesis is an intensive laboratory-based exchange between artists, synthetic biologists and engineers, collaboratively exploring synthetic biology's ideas and techniques and its social and cultural implications.

Artist Melanie Jackson will make a film from the exchange, incorporating interviews with participants and film of the practice of synthetic biology, exploring the thresholds of this new science. Forums and discussion events will broaden the exchange with the public.

The project has been initiated by The Arts Catalyst with Prof John Ward and Dr Jane Gregory from UCL, part of the BBSRC’s SynBion network, Synthetic Aesthetics' resident Oron Catts, Director of SymbioticA, University of Western Australia, and Synthetic Aesthetics.

The first exchange lab will take place in London in 2011, with further labs intended in the future.

This intiative is funded by a Wellcome Trust Arts Award, with support from UCL and Synthetic Aesthetics.

More details soon!

Exploring Collaborations between Synthetic Biology, Art & Design at iGEM

7PM - 8PM, Saturday 6 November 2010
Room 32-155, Stata Center, iGEM Jamboree, MIT

Design is part of the process of synthetic biology. iGEM teams are generating some of the most creative and adventurous design ideas in the field. Now designers are now joining engineering teams, teams of artists/designers are entering iGEM – like ArtScience Bangalore – and engineers are joining art teams. We want to explore what works and hasn’t, how such collaborations can develop in the future, and how Synthetic Aesthetics can contribute. We want to share what we’re learning, talk about our ideas, and find out how iGEM teams are innovating.

How does your project think about design? Molecular design, speculative design, human practices as design? Present a 5 minute pitch and be part of the discussion about what it means to design with nature.
Ask a member of our team at the Jamboree to find out more and schedule a pitch slot.

Programme (5 min talks, 1 hour session total)

1. Synthetic Aesthetics Introduction
2. E.chromi 2009, James King & Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg
3.  ArtScienceBangalore 2009 & 2010
4. WeimarHeidelbergArts 2010
5. Harvard 2010
6. Imperial 2010
7. Fernan Federici (Cambridge U, Plant Sciences) & David Benjamin (Columbia U, Architecture)
8. Discussion - Design in Synthetic Biology at IGEM

Exploring Collaborations between Synthetic Biology, Art & Design 

Organized by 
Orkan Telhan, MIT Department of Architecture   
Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg, Design Fellow, Synthetic Aesthetics, Stanford & Edinburgh 
 
4pm ‐ 7pm, Friday, 5 November 2010 
E14‐633 MIT Media Lab  
 
How would you design nature?  
What does it mean to design with nature?  
How should we design with nature?  
 
Synthetic Biology is a new approach to engineering biology. By applying engineering principles to the 
complexity of living systems, scientists and engineers are making biology a new material for design. 
Synthetic Aesthetics is an ongoing interdisciplinary research project exploring what this kind of design 
means, looks like, and intimates. By bringing scientists, engineers, artists and designers together in 
collaborative projects, we aim to explore shared territory in process, interaction, and directions for future 
work with biological design.  
 
As iGEM 2010 (the International Genetic Engineered Machines competition) begins at MIT, this seminar 
and discussion will delve into synthetic biology, its relationship to design and art, and the diverse 
collaborations underway within Synthetic Aesthetics. Bioengineer and BIOFAB founder Drew Endy will 
introduce synthetic biology, Synthetic Aesthetics residents from science, design and art backgrounds will 
discuss their developing collaborations, social scientists and guest speakers will describe their own 
engagements with the field, from science, design, art to citizen science. 
 
The seminar will focus on what roles designers and artists can play in this nascent field of science and 
engineering, how synthetic biology can impact art and design, and what these collaborations can tell us 
about the role of biotechnology in social life. What can be learned by designers from scientists, and what 
can design and art offer to science? What are these emerging collaborative works? What can this shared 
territory reveal about science and design?  

Speakers Include

Drew Endy Bioengineer, Stanford University
Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg Artist/Designer, UK
Orkan Telhan MIT Architecture
Pablo Schyfter Philosopher Of Technology, Stanford University
Jane Calvert Sociologist Of Science, Edinburgh University
Fernan Federici Plant Scientist, Cambridge University
David Benjamin Architect, Columbia University, NYC
Sissel Tolaas Smell Artist, Germany
Christina Agapakis Biologist, Harvard Medical School
Sascha Pohflepp, Artist/designer, Germany (by skype)
Sheref Mansy Protocell scientist, University of Trento, Italy (by skype)
Will Carey Designer, IDEO Inc., Palo Alto (by Skype)
Mac Cowell DIYbio, Boston
Yashas Shetty Artist, ArtScience Bangalore, India
Peter Yeadon Designer, RISD/Decker Yeadon, NYC (by skype)
Sergio Araya Researcher, Computation, MIT Architecture

Salon
Thursday October 28, 8 pm, with Sascha Pohflepp, Sheref Mansy, Lucy McRae and Koert van Mensvoort. 

  Science and technology are moving closer to adding living organisms to our cultural toolkit. Microbes are already making insulin and soon they may produce the world's fuel supply. Their potential is limited only by our imagination.

At the Mansy Lab, Amy Spencer is developing protocolls with micro-fluidics to manufacture vesicles, using oils and water. Fluorescent dye is added to help with visualisation under the microscope.

Hideo Iwasaki instructs Oron Catts in cyanobacteria protocols.

Cyanobacteria expert, Hideo Iwasaki of Waseda University, Tokyo, and biological artist Oron Catts in Hideo's lab, discussing cyanobacteria and circadian rhythm.

http://www.plantsci.cam.ac.uk/haseloff/

Plant scientist Fernan Federici and architect David Benjamin began their exchange last week at the Haseloff Laboratory at Cambridge University. During their weeks embedded in Cambridge University-based synthetic biology laboratory, Fernan and David are discussing and comparing shared ideas of scale, metaphor, material and space, drawing on their seemingly separate expertise in synthetic biology and architecture.